Hacker News Reader

Comment by mahmoudhossam | Hacker News Reader

Taxation is highly dependent on location and personal factors (single income vs double income household) and other factors that are irrelevant in this context.

Also "benefits" in the American sense aren't really a thing in the EU.

View on HN

I don't know "the american sense", but benfits are definetely a thing in Belgium. I think like 60+% of engineers get company cars.

I assume that cars are not seen as a taxable benefit in Belgium?

Private health insurance is taxable in the UK but every non-intern tech job I've had has had it as a benefit.

Interesting. Curious if that's cultural influence from the US (where it isn't taxable)

It is but at a hilariously cheap rate. It’s pennies on the dollar (or euro, in this case) compared to owning a car outright.

It’s a fringe benefit that was invented in order to enable employers to sweeten the pay package without having to straight up pay more, and respectively pay a lot more taxes.

We’ve a large bunch of these tax efficient fringe benefits in Belgium but the company car is by far the one that provides the most value.

https://www.politico.eu/article/belgium-company-car-conundru...

>Of the 6 million cars on Belgian roads, about 10 percent are company cars.

>Even a first job often comes with a car, and most employees also get unlimited fuel cards.

That sounds fucking crazy.

My dad had an unlimited fuel card for a company car, everyone used that car frivolously

Yup, so Belgium has a lot of weird things like that, but it's really hard to take it away since it's such an important part of salary for many people and taxation is really high so most people are very opposed to losing benefits like this.

I was referring to healthcare which constitutes the bulk of benefits in the US.

Also PTO is more regulated in the EU than it is in the US.

> constitutes the bulk of benefits in the US.

What? What do you mean by bulk?

As in healthcare is very expensive over there and that most of it is tied to the employer.

I'm not sure what you're asking here.

It is expensive but salaries are also higher. Most people pay a few hundred at max per month on several thousand dollars of salary.

I am not sure what you mean by saying "constitutes the bulk of benefits in the US"

https://www.statista.com/statistics/631987/percent-of-income...

Do you mean outside of plain salary, medical benefits are the highest?

I think that may be more correct.

But even that may not be universally true. For folks in software, at least matching retirement benefits will outweigh medical benefits

Yes, I'm not counting the salary as a benefit.

I'm not really familiar with US pension plans so I stand corrected.

Yeah healthcare is for sure better in EU and so less of a benefit, but I still get additional insurance through my company and most white collar jobs do. It's for the extra costs of hospitalisation such as upcharges for a single room and other costs general health care doesn't cover.

I've never heard of an engineer getting a company car in Finland. People mostly just get a phone plan and some sports and culture vouchers.

That is also my experience in Germany, minus the phone plan.

Doesn't 60% of Belgium get company cars? Not something related to engineering, it's one of the basic perks a lot of people get.

No, it’s definitely still a mostly white collar type job benefit, and about 14% of working people get a company car.

This translates to about half a million company cars.

> I think like 60+% of engineers get company cars.

Honest question: How useful is when we frequently hear that Europe doesn't use cars as much as in the US? I can't fathom someone in a major European city finding much use for a car.

That’s more of a stereotype which is really only accurate in some cities and even there usually only in the center areas/old town.

50-70%+ of all Europeans who live in urban areas commute by car*

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...

Very usefull. Many people live outside the city centers (which are very small in Belgium) and use cars to commute.

Public transport is relatively good within a city, but if you come from outside the city it can get really bad. 20 min by car can be 1 hour by bus for example.

Taxation is kinda relevant because there can be huge differences between countries which translate to what you take home.

For example 80k might sounds good in one country but after tax you might take home less than if you made just 60k in another country.

True, but I'm not sure how you'd reflect something like that here tbh.

Comparing anything but the total cost for employer (salary + taxes they pay + benefits) doesn’t make that much sense.

Pretty sure a month or two of vacation is common in the EU.

Only those aren't benefits, they're basic rights protected by law.

Are they, though? The legal minimum in most EU states is just 20 work days which isn’t even a full month.

It's not anywhere I lived, not even close.

Now I have 25 days per year with up to 40 is the max I've seen for places with a lot of overtime.

Mid twenties to early thirties is the average vacation days per year people in the EU get. The rest are fringe outliers.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com